Abstract
From her early years, Edith Stein gave promise of becoming a philosopher. Always asking the why of all that happened in her world, she was never satisfied with the ready answers prevalent in her religious and social milieu. Later her university studies at Breslau generated the intense interest in philosophy which led her to the universities of Göttingen and Freiburg-im-Breisgau to study phenomenology under Edmund Husserl, in company with the famous scholars who engaged him in discussion and dialogue: Adolf Reinach, Fritz Kaufmann, Roman Ingarden, Theodor and Hedwig Conrad-Martius, and Martin Heidegger, to recall only a few. As Husserl’s assistant at Freiburg, she transcribed and edited his voluminous works and prepared students for his classes. In this period her own philosophy was taking form which was basically phenomenological but often at variance with her master’s views in substance, if not in spirit.
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Notes
Zum Problem der Einfuhlung. Another of Stein’s works, Die Frau, which has some philosophical content, was translated by Freda Mary Oben and published by ICS (Washington, D.C., 1987) as Volume II of The Collected Works of Edith Stein.
On the Problem of Empathy, translated by Waltraut Stein (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, second edition, 1970). A revised edition of this translation was published by ICS in 1989 as Volume III of The Collected Works of Edith Stein. References herein are to the 1989 edition unless otherwise indicated. The work is hereafter cited as Empathy.Other philosophical works of Stein are in process of translation and publication by the ICS Press.
Posselt, pp. 22–25.
Edmund Husserl, Ideen zur einer reinem Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, I, edited by Walter Biemel for the Husserl Archives, Husserliana III (M. Nijhoff, The Hague, 1950). First published in the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung I (Halle, 1913). Translation by W. R. Boyce Gibson; Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology ( Macmillan, 1931 ). The German edition is hereafter cited as Ideen; the English translation as Ideas; and all volumes of this Jahrbuch simply as Jahrbuch.
Cf. the famous war-cry of Husserl’s phenomenology, “To the things themselves” (“Zu den Sachen selbst”).
Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft,“ in Logos, I (1910), 341. Hereafter cited as Logos.
Empathy (1970), pp. v-vi.
Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften“ in Jahrbuch, V (1922), 1–284: I, Psychische Kausalität; II, Individuum und Gemeinschaft. Hereafter cited as Beiträge.
Life, pp. 185–222; 239–317.
Beiträge, pp. 43–44, 76.
Eine Untersuchung über den Staat,“ in Jahrbuch, VII (1925), 1–123.
Logos, p. 340.
He is quoted as having said, “I do not believe that the Church has any neo-scholastic of Edith Stein’s quality.” Posselt, p. 155.
Festschrift, 315–338.
As she later expressed it in the foreword to Endliches und Ewiges Sein (Nauwelaerts, Louvian; Herder, Freiburg, 1950), p. viii: “Die beiden philosophischen Welten die darin [in ihrem Verstand] zusammentrafen, verlangten nach einer Auseinandersetzung.”
Festschrift, p. 316. The work was originally presented as a direct confrontation of Thomas and Husserl, being written in the form of a dialogue between the two philosophers, taking place on the evening of Husserl’s birthday celebration. The original is in the Stein Archives. Translation of excerpts from this article appear below in the Appendix.
An article by Kurt F. Reinhardt, “Husserl’s Phenomenology and Thomistic Philosophy,” in New Scholasticism, XI (1937), 320–331, bears a striking resemblance to Stein’s original work.
Das hl. Thomas von Aquino Untersuchungen über die Wahrheit, 3 vol. (Otto Borgmeyer, Breslau, 1931, 1934). A posthumous edition, edited by L. Gelber and R. Leuven, with a preface by Martin Grabmann, was published by Nauwelaerts Herder as Edith Steins Werke, III and IV (Band I, 1952; Band II, 1955 ).
Ibid., 1952 edition, p. 6.
James Collins, “Edith Stein and the Advance of Phenomenology,” in Thought, XVII (1942), 685–708. Cf. also Collins, “Edith Stein as a Phenomenologist,” in Three Paths in Philosophy ( Regnery, Chicago, 1962 ), pp. 85–105.
Complete title: Die Frau, Ihre Aufgabe nach Natur und Gnade. Edith Steins Werke, V, edited by L. Gelber R. Leuven (Nauwelaerts Herder, 1959). See. n. 1 above for the English edition. References herein are to the German edition.
Die Frau, pp. 47 ff.
Roman Ingarden, a close associate of Stein, states that she had made an attempt before going to Speyer and again in 1931 to obtain a university lectureship, but did not get it because of the prejudice against women. Ingarden maintains that Edith Stein was eminently qualified. Ingarden, “Über die philosophischen Forschungen Edith Steins,” in Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, XXIX (1979), 461.
Journée. See Chapter I, n. 36 above.
Quoted in Posselt, pp. 118–119.
Ibid., p. 156. Sr. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce made profession of first vows in 1935 and of final vows in 1938, six days before Edmund Husserl died at the monastery of St. Lioba in Günterstal, a suburb of Freiburg, where he had taken refuge from the Nazis in his last years.
See n. 18 above.
The posthumous edition, Endliches und Ewiges Sein, edited by L. Gelber R. Leuven, was published as Edith Steins Werke, II ( Nauwelaerts Herder, 1950 ). Hereafter cited as E.E.S.
Ibid., pp. viii-ix, and pp. 487 ff.
Cf. Sofia Vanni Rovighi, “La figura et l’opera di Edith Stein,” in Studium, L (1954), 567. Rovighi’s article gives an excellent account of Stein’s philosophy.
Festschrift, pp. 317–322. Cf. also Die Frau, pp. 135–136.
E.E.S., p. 18.
Ibid., p. 23.
Ibid., pp. 24–26.
Ibid., pp. 25, 27.
Ibid., Chapter VII, pp. 328–429.
Welt und Person (Nauwelaerts Herder). The subtitle is Beiträge zum Christlichen Wahrheitsstreben.
Ibid., pp. 1–17.
Ibid., pp. 33–38.
Ibid., pp. 69–135.
Ibid., pp. 137–197.
The two remaining articles are on Nature and Supernature in Goethe’s Faust (pp. 19–31) and on Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle (pp. 39–68).
Op. cit., pp. 471–473.
Ibid., pp. 479–480. Ingarden says that he himself had wanted in 1913 to write his dissertation on the human person, but Husserl had vetoed the choice because, in view of the state of the question at the time, it would take more years than he had to give to it.
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Baseheart, M.C. (1997). Overview of Her Philosophy. In: Person in the World. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 27. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2566-8_2
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